Here pages ten. Okay, then himself you'll read. And some more: "the plan of an estate"... Something about crypts at the Kinoveyevsky monastery... by the way, it nearby here was, there and now a cemetery... and the following... Listen, here there is someone. I have to go downstairs now, and later, if there's any powder in the car, I'll try to get it out. Meet me at work, okay? Lots of love. And, Valera ... the best lesbian is you.
- The phone beeped.
- What did she find?"
- - Get'll understand. Evening soon,go back. We'll find out."
- The phone rang again. The colleague pressed the button.
- - Ivanov this. We are here with the people have spoken – enough with the dick bones. I told some people about his numbers... I think he'll tell us who was there with him the second, what they did and why ... you Want-come with us. Where is he now?"
- – I don't know, but we were on our way to his office. There the girl friend is working, maybe she knows something.
- I got into the conversation:
- - Just don't loom in front of the building. A lot of people have business with him now, you saw. Stop about two blocks away.
- – Nicely. If you don't find us, ring the bell.
- – Arranged.
* * *
We were in the car near Sunset.
The workday was long over. Closer to the horizon, the houses first lit up, and then gradually began to fade lights on passing through the gloomy wasteland far Eastern Avenue dimly shone lanterns. Gusts of wind rattled the roofs of the garages on the other side of the road, howled in the dilapidated towers of the chemical plant, rustled the dried grass on the embankment separating the swamps of the Cheerful Village from the asphalt.
I looked at my watch: two o'clock. Light from the building and did not come out. We called her several times from a pay phone, but there was no answer at the office.
The mobsters were playing cards in a nearby jeep. The lights were on, they were playing strip, and from a distance the car looked like a mobile gay club. Occasionally, cigarette butts and empty beer cans were thrown out.
Ivanov sat with us and smoked in silence. We gave up the idea of storming the office, which I was beginning to regret... what was going on inside? A couple of Windows on the second floor were still burning, and it was possible to assume that they had some urgent night work... But I believed it every hour weaker, gloomy forebodings gradually weathered the excitement of hunting. Looks like we framed the Secretary.
Toward two in the morning, a van with a black stripe pulled up to the gate. Valery just in case turned on the camera and began to shoot.
The door opened, seems, Pavlov. A few grunts got out and went inside. A few minutes later they began to carry out the bodies, wrapped in sheets.
– What are they doing there?"
- Get their knows. and, remember, World told, that in crematorium refrigerator has broken, and they on Treaty store until burning collected on the streets bums? They must have come for them.
The car was loaded for a long time. After the first forty minutes, the bloke got out of the cab a couple of bottles of vodka and took a break. After that the work went on more cheerfully, except that the stevedores kept tripping on the steps; it was a good thing the men they carried didn't care if they dropped them or not.
Another forty minutes later, the paramedics were moving with great difficulty. Grabbing for doors, railings, walls, they heroically overcame the hard way from the porch to the car, but it turned out they are worse and worse. And finally, with a loud curse, the alcoholic holding the stretcher in front of him hit the asphalt, followed by the second fell, and the body from the stretcher rolled down the sloping entrance to the gate, freeing itself from the sheet. In the faint glow of the streetlamps he caught a glimpse of the familiar dyed hair…
I have a sick feeling in the stomach. Suddenly sweaty hands I groped on the dashboard Muscovite key and turned on the headlights on the high beam.
Valery almost dropped the camera, Ivanov spat a cigarette out the window and yanked the door, naked bandits climbed out of the jeep... the dead Secretary of the funeral home lay on the asphalt.
* * *
We didn't find Rosenthal in the office. According to his Deputy, it turned out that he went somewhere around the time when we last spoke with Sveta on the phone. From the client with the team was no good, and Valera of Secretary terribly upset, and that night I got drunk and stoned.
- All I could do was wait.
The whole day I sat on the balcony, watching the splashing under the Windows the tops of the trees, Smoking and thinking what to do next. Gradually it got dark, in the nine-story building opposite the Windows were lit, far below glided will-o ' - the-wisps of cigarette butts, in the bushes flashed the glow of a fire lit by local hooligans. Disturbing the winds were howling.
Late on the evening sobered up colleague. He looked terrifying, like everything else in the case. It is not true that all alcohol is well preserved: Valera was like a mummy made without preservatives. Thought and spoke he with hard, was dismal:
– The second murder in this office... something's wrong with her.
– Yes, it is strange. First Nina decided to tell something Pro relatives Rosenthal's, immediately slipped and has broken head in the morgue. Now of Light has found any paper on the subject, and its here same tried to cremate with bums. Can, there and truth there is, that hide?
"You know," Valerka said, taking a SIP of Coca-Cola and nearly throwing up, " I think Pavlov will be next." He told us so much about Rosenthal... and those two were just getting ready.
"Well ... just the opposite: if he's already told you, it's too late to kill him." Besides, the door to the study was closed when we spoke, and I don't think anyone could have overheard us. More like worms.
Part 10